Phillosophically speaking: August anniversaries

I’ve been struck this August by the anniversaries of several events, and all have similar lessons to teach us if we’d only listen.

“The war to end all wars” —August, 1914

In this month, the guns of what was then called “the great war” began to blaze, and did not fall silent until the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. By the war’s end, the generally accepted casualty figures included some 10 million military deaths, with around 7 million civilians lost in what we would now call collateral damage.

However, what distinguished this war from previous ones were the combat deaths. Before, the majority of those dying were lost because of diseases, but the rapidly evolving technology of war changed all that.

The term “the war to end all wars,” was coined after the war was over, when people, reeling from the ghastly effects of what was then the worst war in history, were confident that the horrors witnessed by the world would assure that such a human atrocity would never happen again.

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution —August, 1964

On Aug. 2, the U.S. destroyer Maddox, on an intelligence mission off the coast of North Vietnam, fired on approaching North Vietnamese gunboats. Several days later there was another supposed attack, this time involving North Vietnamese torpedoes fired at the Maddox, and this was the incident that gave President Lyndon Johnson what he needed to seek approval for military action to protect South Vietnam. His Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed on Aug. 7.

There was only one problem: the second attack never happened. The supposed torpedoes were actually signals misread by jumpy radar men. Although Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara soon knew the truth, he withheld that information from Johnson before the resolution was passed, and, by the time the president knew in 1965, the war was raging. As Johnson later said, “For all I know, our navy was shooting at whales out there,” but his fatal sense of pride apparently kept him silent.

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Decades later, an octogenarian McNamara finally admitted the truth, and acknowledged his role in another instance of how the American people have been lied into wars, but it was 40 years too late.

Like the congressional vote for George W.’s War on Terror, among lawmakers then there was only one dissent. Meanwhile, in the Senate, only two questioned Johnson’s assertions, including Oregon’s Wayne Morse, who’d been tipped off by an anonymous source that the “attack” never occurred. He tried to warn his colleagues and the country, but lacked time to build his case. Then, as often happens after a true act of patriotism, he was later voted out of office.

Nixon’s resignation —August, 1974

Finally, after being approached by a bi-partisan, political delegation, President Richard Nixon called it quits. Of course many celebrated, but soon that mood was punctured by President Gerald Ford’s totally bogus (and highly suspicious) pardon of the former president, which had no legal legitimacy because you can’t pardon someone who’d never been convicted of a crime.

But we can see now that the actual lasting problem with the fall of Nixon was a remark he later made in his famous interview with David Frost: “When the president does it, that means that it’s not illegal.” Although that too has no legal legitimacy, ever since then we’ve been acting as if it does, thinking that Nixon’s fall is enough to prove that our presidents are punished.

But, in the years since, presidents have apparently committed such crimes (and I say, apparently, because they haven’t been convicted of those crimes) as the Iran/Contra deal; the illegal declaration of a war based on lies; violating the Fourth Amendment by spying on millions of Americans; violating the Fifth and Sixth amendments by depriving some Americans of their right to life and a public trial through extrajudicial executions; and torture.

Each one of these crimes is far worse than conspiring to cover up the burglary of a psychiatrist’s office, but, not only have there been no pursuits of criminal proceedings, even impeachment is “off the table.” Nixon was apparently right.

Linking the lessons

So, what are some of the lessons we can learn from these August anniversaries? In World War I’s case: that yet another war will not put an end to war.

In the Gulf of Tonkin: that a president can and will lie us into war, and that our government is not one that’s uniquely honest, but, instead, is just like all the rest, and will, if allowed, operate not by law but by the whims of its leaders.

Finally: when the president does it, sometimes it can be illegal, and that only when we start holding them accountable will we begin to live up to our claim of being the greatest democracy on the face of the Earth.

Phill Courtney is a Redlands resident. He can be reached at pjcourtney@earthlink.net.